“The Biblical vision is not so much concerned with life after death but about life after life after death.”

“Wherever St. Paul went, there was a riot. Wherever I go, they serve tea.”

“The word ‘gospel,’ in Paul’s world, meant the accession of Caesar. And when Tiberius or Nero came to power, the imperial heralds did not go around saying, ‘There is this new experience you might like to try on for size, namely, you might like to give allegiance to Caesar if that suits you and if that’s where you are right now in your own personal journey.’ No, they said, ‘Tiberius is emperor! Get down on your knees!’”

“God is not very concerned with the method by which rulers come to power; He is passionately and compassionately concerned with what they do once they attain power.”

(In response to those who tell him, “I don’t believe in God”) “Really? Which god is it that you don’t believe in?”
“My proposal is not that we understand what the word ‘god’ means and manage somehow to fit Jesus into that. Instead, I suggest that we think historically about a young Jew, possessed of a desperately risky, indeed apparently crazy, vocation, riding into Jerusalem in tears, denouncing the Temple, and dying on a Roman cross–and that we take our courage in both hands and allow our meaning for the word ‘god’ to be recentered around that point.”

“Jesus did not ‘know he was God’ in the same way one knows one is male or female, hungry or thirsty, or that one ate an orange an hour ago. His ‘knowledge’ was of a more risky, but perhaps more significant, sort: like knowing one is loved. One cannot ‘prove’ it except by living it.”

(About being bald) “When you get to be my age, you only have so many hormones left, and if you want to use yours to grow hair on the top of your head, that’s fine.”

“Almighty Father, maker of Heaven and Earth, set up your Kingdom in our midst. Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy on us sinners. Holy Spirit, Breath of the Living God, renew us and all the world.”

It might be fun to add to this list. My all-time favorite is:

If Jesus is Lord, Caesar is not.

Do you have favorite N.T. Wright lines? (I certainly have others, but I don’t have time to fish them out at the moment.)